Žižek’s subtitle is “In opposing Obamacare, the radical-populist right exposes its own twisted ideology” and in the essay, he poses a provocative question that I’ve been wondering about a lot myself recently: “Barack Obama is accused of dividing the American people instead of bringing them together. But what if this, precisely, is what is good about Obama?”

One of the weird consequences of the 2008 financial meltdown and the measures taken to counteract it (enormous sums of money to help banks) was the revival of the work of Ayn Rand, the closest one can get to an ideologist of the “greed is good” radical capitalism. The sales of her opus Atlas Shrugged exploded. According to some reports, there are already signs that the scenario described in Atlas Shrugged – the creative capitalists themselves going on strike – is coming to pass in the form of a populist right. However, this misreads the situation: what is effectively taking place today is almost the exact opposite. Most of the bailout money is going precisely to the Randian “titans”, the bankers who failed in their “creative” schemes and thereby brought about the financial meltdown. It is not the “creative geniuses” who are now helping ordinary people, it is the ordinary people who are helping the failed “creative geniuses.”

John Galt, the central character in Atlas Shrugged, is not named until near the end of the novel. Before his identity is revealed, the question is repeatedly asked, “Who is John Galt?” Now we know precisely who he is: John Galt is the idiot responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown, and for the ongoing federal government shutdown in the US.

Here’s how the cameraman, Dennis GIlman, an AZ pro-immigrant rights activist described what happened:

“This was filmed on the public lawn of the Arizona State Capitol on September 7, 2013 where the “We Are America Tour” added Arizona racist, former State Senate President President Russell Pearce. Pearce is famous for SB1070 and his association and endorsement of neo-Nazi JT Ready, who killed an entire family before killing himself in 2012. The local racists have worked closely with FAIR for years. I was there to film the speakers.

It’s a safe guess that if Minute Man founder Chris Simcox wasn’t sitting in jail for multiple counts of child molestation that he would’ve been a speaker at this event also. Is it any wonder why they didn’t want the “liberal Media” filming them? For my own safety, I refused to leave without a police escort. It took over 7 minutes for any law enforcement to arrive. The video is edited only for length.”

The speaker is Gabriela Saucedo Mercer, a failed former Republican candidate for the Arizona Senate who said such outrageously racist shit that even Jan Brewerhad to distance herself from her last year. She tells the (obviously) low IQ crowd that she’s against amnesty and that immigrants should do things the legal way when they want to come to America, just like she did (Apparently what Mrs. Mercer means by that is that—hey, hey—they should all marry wealthy men!). These fucking brain-damaged numbnuts cheer her on.

Although the video pretty much tells the whole story here, as there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of nuance to what transpired, here’s some additional information via The Phoenix New Times:

All of it was unprovoked. It’s almost funny when, after they surround Gilman like a pack of wild dogs, they tell Gilman to “stop pushing.”

Fortunately, playwright James Garcia was on hand, taking pictures of what was going on. He recently posted some of these to Facebook, with an eyewitness account of what transpired. Garcia writes:

“He was exercising his First Amendment right as an independent journalist to document a news event when he was literally surrounded by several people who alternately tried obstructing his view to keep him from videotaping, while a few of them began pushing and shoving him around—apparently intent on trying to provoke him….

“At one point, some of protesters who had surrounded Dennis began to yell out that he was assaulting them. These were blatant lies. The most aggressive thing Dennis did was turn his camera on his aggressors in hopes of documenting their abuse, while he pointedly insisted that they not touch his camera equipment. “

To be fair, assuming the group had a permit for the rally on the state Senate lawn, they could ask Gilman to leave. And if he chooses not to, they could wait for the police to show up to ask him to leave.

Having a permit does not give you license to harass and assault someone. Gilman says that when the authorities showed up, he agreed to leave if they would escort him all the way to his car. Smart move, considering the nature of the crowd, and the fact many of them were packing.

The best thing the nativists could have done is ignore Gilman’s presence. By singling him out and acting like a bunch of schoolyard bullies, they not only revealed their true colors, they ruined a chance to convey their intended message. Now they have to defend themselves by blaming the victim, which makes them look even worse.

Here’s a little free PR advice for them that they won’t take: Apologize to Gilman and promise to ensure his safety at the next demonstration they hold, whatever that is. This would be the smart thing to do, a way of mitigating the damage. But they won’t, largely because they are filled with rage and must attack anyone who disagrees with them.

And also because they are really, really dumb.

For some time, members of the neo-Nazis affiliated “Remember 1986” group (co-sponsors of the event) have been known to show up and harass Mexican day laborers at a spot in Phoenix where they congregate.

His actions go unimpeded, our pleas through petitions unanswered. Our calls and letters to Congress are left ignored and unopened. [Just hazarding a guess here, maybe, just maybe it’s because they’re from crazy people?—RM]

Our only peaceful recourse is to take to the streets and overpasses of America and DEMAND that our nation be returned to We the People, and that Barack Hussein Obama be Impeached, removed from office, and held accountable for his actions while serving as President.

There must be loads of impeachable offenses committed by the Obama administration—I’m no fan—but things like “Breitbart,” (do they think his death was an Obama-ordered hit?), “FEMA Camps,” “ACORN” and “Valerie Jarrett” are just not among them. The reasons these soft-brained kooks have come up with… hell, a liberal who despised Obama couldn’t convince these kinds of people that they’re barking up the wrong damned tree…

Billing itself as a gathering that will bring together “grassroots Americans from across the political spectrum” to march against immigration reform, the so-called “March for Jobs,” heavily promoted by Brietbart.com (who are webcasting the event live) will feature/is currently featuring speeches from anti-immigration reform members of Congress, fun fun peeps like Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), Reps. Steve King (R-IA) and Mo Brooks (R-AL), and not to mention former Florida Republican Congressman Col. Allen West.

Talk about a Republican brain trust… If not for Harvard Law grad Cruz, the collective IQ of that bunch would be about 250…

One of the speakers today is “Progressives for Immigration Reform” executive director Leah Durant. Durant, who also helms the “Black American Leadership Alliance,” is frequently heard on rightwing talk radio and Fox News, and preposterously billed as a “progressive” voice(!!) for the most regressive and intellectually indefensible bullshit that reichwingers just LOVE to hear black people spout, such as Durant’s greatest (s)hit, the debunked myth that the Senate’s immigration reform bill would disproportionately spike African-American unemployment rates (despite plenty of studies which show that the opposite would, in fact, occur):

Durant told Breitbart News on Sunday evening that this event is meant to ensure that all working Americans, especially black Americans, get a voice in the immigration debate. “At a time when nearly 22 million Americans are either out of work or underemployed, it is our strong belief that now is no time to engage in policies that would artificially add millions more workers to US labor markets, dramatically increasing competition for scare U.S. jobs,” Durant said. “At 13.8%, black unemployment is nearly double that of the national average. Our coalition - the Black American Leadership Alliance reflects the views of everyday middle-class Americans rather than the political elites and big business interests from both the right and left, that have championed large-scale immigration to the US.”

Honestly, who cares how cynical she is? This march looks not only to be one of the least influential events to take place in Washinton, DC this entire year, these people are preaching to the goddamned choir anyways. Look at that photo above, tweeted by sad Brietbart toady Matthew Boyle. The entire event, it seems fair to wager, will see more African-American faces on the stage than off it.

Do dip into the LiveStream webcast on Brietbart, it’s really interesting, trust me. As are the live comments whizzing past. Here’s one I just caught:

“When an honest man finds he is wrong, he either stops being wrong, or stops being honest. Allen West chose to stop being honest.”

Someone else puked up “Amnesty is just another name for slavery for the Mexicans!” via their Cheetos-stained keyboard…

The camera angle being used by Brietbart livestream doesn’t allow the viewer to see how few folks turned up, but tweets from the event like “Standing ovation of Col. Allen West!” are given away by the “plop plop” nature of the applause that you can (barely) hear. Here’s a link to the “March for Jobs” LiveStream, if I embed it, it’s on auto-play.

Below, note how many actual black people have showed up for the Black American Leadership Alliance’s event. Notice also, if you will, how much of the audience appears to be related to Ted Nugent, or each other for that matter. Just sayin’

It would be (too) easy to whip up an editorial tirade about this, but why bother when the “party” is going to be over soon enough anyway?

The glaring twin ironies at play here seem to be missed entirely by the dum-dum tea baggers: First, that the folks who consider themselves Tea partiers correspond pretty faithfully to the same demographic who still read newspapers in printed form and who are receiving, or who soon enough will receive Social Security benefits and Medicare.

Why not try to elect Republican candidates who will cut your own benefits so that billionaires can amass greater and great hordes of cash? Psst, hey Tea party people, the Republican party wants to cut benefits for white seniors too! [And guess what: SO DO MOST OF THE FUCKING DEMOCRATS—INCLUDING OBAMA!]

I don’t think those ‘baggers have really thought any of this stuff through.

The other thing is, who will replenish the Tea party ranks when these dickheads die off? Will this message resonate much with all of those recent college grads with debt up to their eyeballs, and no job prospects that pay higher than ten bucks an hour?

The Tea party, that supposedly populist political movement who never saw a tax cut for a billionaire it didn’t like BECAUSE FREEDOM, doesn’t really seem to quite “get” pop culture, even as they try desperately to emulate it, in ham-fisted efforts to appear hip.

Take for instance, Tea Party Patriots: A Movement On Fire! an odd exercise in far right, endtimes-themed agitprop that was screened at the recent conservative Republican confab, CPAC. The clip is a slickly produced, but paranoiac nod to both V for Vendetta and The Hunger Games that seems to be advocating for a decidedly non-democratic overthrow of the government. I picture inbred morons with Mountain Dew mouth watching and thinking “I would totally do that… if I could just lift myself off this couch…”

What “side” do these fucking planks pretend to themselves that they’re on, anyways?!?! Imagine what these folks would do if they were able to “take back” their country…

In The Hunger Games, the 1% live in obscene, preposterous luxury while the miserable proles are forced to work themselves to death and if they’re really unlucky, they get to participate in a spectator sport reality show (Sound like any country you know of, or maybe live in?). I don’t really think the Tea Party Patriots see themselves the same way that others see them, do you?

Heroes or zeroes, this is how the Teahadists are trying to appeal to young people. Imagine the flies this shit will attract! Superb!

FUN FACT: In 2011, Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler was arrested at LaGuardia Airport in New York and charged with criminal possession of a weapon when he presented a Delta Airlines agent with his Glock!

Ultimately, the thing that Tea Party Patriots: A Movement On Fire! reminded me of was this brilliant sketch from That Mitchell and Webb Look:

True the Vote‘s Catherine Engelbrecht actually sees herself as a defender of democracy!

The Tea party-affiliated group True the Vote has been barred from monitoring polling places in Franklin County, the second largest county in Ohio — which includes the state capital, Columbus—after allegedly submitting fraudulent forms.

True the Vote claims that its campaign is non-partisan, yet its website touts “vote fraud is nearly an exclusive crime of the left” and claims that the left—I think they mean Democrats here—wants “to be able to steal elections at will.”

But forging signatures on official forms? Can’t you see they had to bend the rules to save democracy from… people like themselves???

It doesn’t get any more ridiculous than these assholes! I don’t know what the hell these dipshit doodlebugs think they’re up to and I don’t think they do either. That’s why they’re Tea baggers, I suppose. If their IQs were any higher this sort of lowbrow activity would have no appeal…

“The Franklin County Board of Elections did not allow Election Day polling location observer appointments filed by the True the Vote group,” board spokesman Ben Pisctelli told The Columbus Dispatch in a statement. “The appointments were not properly filed and our voting location managers were instructed not to honor any appointment on behalf of the True the Vote group.”

True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht denied the allegations, insisting that no one trained by True the Vote had done anything illegal or unethical. Engelbrecht said the incident was the Ohio Democratic Party’s “final, desperate attempt to deny citizens their right to observe elections” and vowed to take legal action.

Isn’t that what any completely insane, reality-denying person would say when confronted with the fact that members of her organization had been caught red-handed forging signatures on official government papers? Committing felonies!

I think it is.

The group had hoped to place poll watchers in predominately African American areas. True the Vote had asked to send poll watchers to 28 precincts in Franklin County — which includes the capital, Columbus. African Americans comprise more than half the population in 20 of the 28 targeted precincts, though they make up only about 12 percent of the state’s total population.

Left-leaning groups have accused True the Vote of seeking to intimidate Democratic voters.

I wonder why that would be? These True the Vote-types seem like such honest, patriotic Americans!

If you can’t trust people who wrap themselves up in the American flag, who can ya trust?

Truly the face of someone with absolutely nothing on her mind, isn’t it?

The President of the Central Mississippi Tea Party, a nincompoop named Janis Lane, believes that women are too “mean, hateful” and “diabolical” to be trusted with the vote, and probably shouldn’t have been given the right to vote in the first place.

In a conversation with two other members of the Tea party conducted by the Jackson Free Press, Lane put some pretty remarkable interjections into the conversation. The two other participants in the chat were Mark Mayfield, a real estate attorney and Kim Wade, who is a former Nation of Islam adherent and currently a conservative radio talk show host(!):

Sorry to shut the men out of the conversation, but I wanted to ask Janis about the role of women in conservative politics and reproductive rights.

Lane: I do not agree with the federal government supporting killing a preborn human. A child is a child from the moment of conception. The argument is: They’ve done it before, they’ll always do it. That’s probably true. My point is a nation should not support or condone the killing of anybody. Then you’ll come around with what about capital punishment. Well, you know what, if you’re on death row, you’re an adult and you made a choice to be there. An innocent child in the womb does not have a right to make a decision because they haven’t been born, yet. We’re taking that right away from that child.

But do you think there are too many male politicians telling women what to do with their bodies?

Wade: This is about right and wrong. How is it that they find a cell on Mars, then there’s evidence of life on Mars, but if there’s a cell in a womb, it’s not a baby? ... You don’t have the right to kill. If that was the case, then they had a right to kill us as blacks. If it’s just a matter of having enough votes in the Legislature to kill someone, then there’s nothing wrong with it.

Lane: I’m really going to set you back here. Probably the biggest turn we ever made was when the women got the right to vote.

What do you mean?

Lane: Our country might have been better off if it was still just men voting. There is nothing worse than a bunch of mean, hateful women. They are diabolical in how than can skewer a person. I do not see that in men. The whole time I worked, I’d much rather have a male boss than a female boss. Double-minded, you never can trust them. Because women have the right to vote, I am active, because I want to make sure there is some sanity for women in the political world. It is up to the Christian rednecks and patriots to stand up for our country. Everyone has the right to vote now that’s 18 or over (who is) a legal citizen, and every person that’s 18 and over and a legal citizen should be active in local politics so they can make a change locally, make a change on the state level and make a change in Washington, D.C.

Me, I wholeheartedly support the likes of Janis and her busybody friends in the Central Mississippi Tea Party. They’re doin’ the Lord’s work, as far as I’m concerned, by putting such a grotesque and mentally incapacitated face on conservative “philosophy.”

Crack cocaine is very addictive. It is very destructive. Addiction specialist (sic) will tell you that a crack addiction is very tough to break.

Is Obama an addict? Was he an addict in the past?

These are all legitimate questions to ask about a man who has his hands on the nuclear trigger.

Why is Obama hiding these records and why isn’t the drive by media asking these questions.

Why aren’t Republicans demanding the answers to these questions, instead of telling Mitt Romney he needs to play into Obama’s hands by releasing more tax returns??”

Uh, well…. just hazarding a guess here, but maybe, just maybe Judson, maybe they’re a little less batshit fucking crazy than you are? Maybe you’re not buddying up to the right reichwingers? What about Louie Gohmert or Michele Bachmann? Whatsamatter THEY aren’t taking your calls anymore, Judson?

I don’t even think Fox News is willing to have poor, hapless Judson on anymore. When Fox doesn’t want your services, your salad days as a pundit are pretty much over. That’s a special cattle-brand of “DUMB SHIT” seared into your forehead! Soon Phillips will have to settle for seeing himself on Victoria Jackson’s podcast. How far the mighty have fallen, eh?

What do some bison in Montana have to do with the world’s economy grinding to a halt, $25 per gallon gasoline and Karl Marx’s nefarious plans to crush America? (Besides nothing).

Kooky Montana state rep Krayton Kerns has come up with one of the more incoherent conspiracy theories I think I’ve ever come across after more than 25 years of watching that space rather closely.

Even by the admittedly dull intellectual standards of the Tea party, this is hilariously weak:

This winter, under the cloak of darkness and against Montana Code, 60 bison were relocated from the quarantine facilities of Yellowstone National Park (YNP) to the Fort Peck Reservation along the Missouri Breaks. This is the second of a four step process to crush the republic and bring our populace into perfect dependence on big government—just as Karl Marx dreamed. If you missed steps one and two, you will likely refuse to acknowledge steps three and four, but I will explain them anyway.

Step One: Whether Walt Disney was a cause or an effect is uncertain, but his personification of animals allowed activists to gift Bambi rights equal to those endowed us by our Creator. Simultaneously and incrementally, government schools began promoting the religion of environmentalism until eventually state sponsored worship of the earth and creation surpassed worship of our Creator. (If that last sentence made you winch, you see how deeply idolatry has infected the American soul.)

Step Two: Fully indoctrinated Americans have deemed YNP bison as a genetically pure mascot worthy of worship as the golden calf. This May, our US Senate discussed legislation to designate the bison as our national mammal, while activists quietly acquired conservation easements and commandeered Montana water rights through the Clean Water Act. The noose of federal control quietly tightened around massive tracts of Montana’s Missouri Breaks, and just as planned, 60 YNP bison appeared on the Fort Peck Reservation.

Step Three (Prediction): Like clockwork, YNP bison will overpopulate and escape their temporary home and within a decade, there will be thousands of bison ravaging The Breaks. Once Montanans discover the problem, it will be too late—just as it was with the introduction of the invasive species of the gray wolf.

Step Four (Prediction): The world’s economy will grind to a halt due to instability in the Middle East driving the price of gasoline over $25 per gallon. In desperation, America will attempt to develop the massive Bakken oil reserves of Montana and North Dakota only to learn a future leftist president has issued a moratorium on all oil exploration to protect the habitat of our national mammal, the noble, YNP-origin, American Bison. Think about it.

Our great American experiment in freedom is stampeding off a cliff. Surrounded by bison, there are American patriots in the leads hollering about this being a trap, but their screams are ignored as they disappear from view and ear shot over the horizon. Slaughter on the western plains has come full circle.

As The Daily Beast’‘s Michael Tomasky reports, Scott’s announcement means that at least several hundred thousand—if not many more—of Florida’s poorest families and individuals (those who are up to 133% above the poverty line) will not receive subsidies to purchase health insurance which would be 93% covered by the Feds anyway:

So this is what social programs mean to Scott. As a private-sector businessman, something to steal from. As a public “servant,” something to play political games with. Floridians will die so that he can be first in the wingnut line.

I don’t know the precise number, but in a state that size, surely a couple million people/families who’ll be eligible for care under the new law in 2014—families of four earning up to $88,000 are eligible for the subsidies—will be denied the chance to buy coverage at subsidized rates because Scott has refused this money. From a policy perspective, this is the next battleground, the pressure point of resistance for the hard-shell ideologues. How many states will really sacrifice billions in federal dollars for the sake of ideology, and how many will do it before the election so they get a gold star from Rove?

Those interested in what we used to call facts may want to read through this nice primer from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which describes the Medicaid transfer from the feds to the states and explains how the federal government will actually be picking up 93 percent of the costs over the next nine years.

If you lived in Florida and you were having a hard time coping like a lot of people are these days—let’s say that maybe you have a handicapped child and have lost your job for the sake of this thought experiment—and you watched last week’s SCOTUS announcement and cried tears of joy that your kid would finally be able to get medical care without making the rest of your family homeless, and now you get THIS NEWS that a mutant shitstain on humanity like Rick Scott is going to deny your kid healthcare because he wants brownie points with the fucking Tea party, what would you think about doing to Rick Scott?

Ponder that for ten seconds. Don’t even give yourself the luxury of a full minute. What comes to mind that you would want to do to Rick Scott?

And if you, dear reader, are thinking what I am a thinking… have a look at the trailer for the powerful (and very underrated I feel) 2002 film, John Q.

Will life imitate art? In the case of Rick Scott, let’s hope it fucking does!

Last night on his HBO program, Real Time, Bill Maher compared OWS’s real world political gains to the Tea party’s decidedly more concrete electoral accomplishments and reveals a stark truth for the movement…